STLTODAY.COM SPORTS
11/21/2005
Rams coach Joe Vitt won’t jump ugly on his mistake-prone team this week. He and his assistant coaches don’t want to change their tone with the players.
But, Vitt said, “we’re going to have to demand more perfect practices. If we have a mistake in practice, we are going to have to do the play over again. If we have to stay out there until 7 o’clock at night until we get it right, that’s going to have to be the approach.”
Here were Vitt’s thoughts on other topics:
On the likelihood of quarterback
Marc Bulger missing more games with his shoulder injury: “He’s very, very sore. He’s getting a MRI right now. He also sustained a concussion in the game. He’s banged up. I have no prognosis right now.”
On Adam Archuleta’s concussion: “He went in and played two series after the concussion. To his credit, he tried to stay in there and battle. But he was really woozy on the sideline.”
On his team’s sloppy play: “We made too many mistakes in critical situations in order to give ourselves a chance to win. You cannot win with the number of penalties we had, especially the untimely penalties. You can’t win if you break down protection-wise and are constantly getting the quarterback hit.
“We’re making the same mistakes over and over and over again. I have to say to myself, they’re doing it because I’m allowing it. So I have to take responsibility for that. We’re going to continue to address it. We’re going to continue to coach against it. But we’re not going to become much better as a football team unless we take it upon ourselves as a team to make sure we don’t do it any more.
“One thing I’m not going to do right now is I’m not going to change my approach. We’re going to stress it every single day. We’re going to coach against it every single day. All of sudden if I start going up and down with my emotions and the assistant coaches start doing that, then panic sets in. So, no, we’re just going to continue to coach hard against it.”
On the unsuccessful effort to cut down the penalties: “We brought in the officials for practice. We have charted penalties in practice. We have listed the penalties on the board. I come in every morning and tell the players in practice, offsides, illegal contact down the field, false starts, illegal procedure, we chart them on a daily basis. They continue to happen. We’re going to either accept them as coaches or – it’s got to stop.
“I think the parity is here in the National Football League. Most of these teams are even. The team that plays the most mistake-free football is the team that has the best chance to win. Before you ever win in this league, you have to keep from losing. We keep shooting ourselves in the foot.
On whether the team has cleaned up its practice habits: “Absolutely. I felt we had really a good practice on Thursday. I thought we had a good practice on Friday. From that standpoint, I thought we would play better in the game.”
On his team’s inability to run the ball: “I can feel the plight of our offensive coaches. (The Cardinals) are putting eight, nine guys in the box and single-covered on the outside lane. We aren’t running the ball an inch. You can try to set your jaw and be as committed as you want to the run. As ugly as it was yesterday, you’ve got to go to the outside.
“Ten minutes left in the game, we’re winning the football game. It’s ugly, but we’re winning the game and it’s manageable. And it fell apart.”
On his team’s inability to pick up safety Adrian Wilson on his blitzes: “Our coaches, hell, we knew they were going to blitz 24. That was the second thing we talked about all week long. Recognize the five-man front when they had it and locate 24 on every snap. We put him the Pro Bowl yesterday.
“It’s a lack of execution. We know where 24 is. We know where the slot is supposed to go, we know where the back is supposed to go, we don’t get it done. There was absolutely no disguise by them in what they were doing. They were showing 24 in the paint. Wherever he showed in the paint, that’s where he was coming from.
“There is one of two ways to pick it up. Either the back goes there and picks it up or the line slides that way and picks it up. Three times it was a complete bust. And it was something we worked on in practice.”
On the play of receiver Isaac Bruce: “He is a warrior. He makes a huge catch yesterday for a touchdown. At this point, he is 12 yards or 15 yards short of 12,000 yards, which I think only 10 other players have accomplished in our league. Obviously Hall of Fame numbers. Just a warrior.”
On the failure to corral Anquan Boldin on the one touchdown catch: “There were six missed tackles on the play. He made a run similar to that against Carolina earlier in the year. Just a fantastic run. He made about six people miss. It was in the red zone. The result was the same. We showed it to our football team.
“We have him pinned in. We’re coming high, we’re coming from the side, we’re V-ing him, right shoulder, left shoulder. That’s huge. You can talk about schemes, you can talk about play calling. Well, we have six of ours on one of theirs.”
On his decision to go for the last field goal instead of a first down: “There was no doubt in my mind what we were going to do. To me, you’re playing for the win. You get the three points right there, you go three and out on defense, you take the time outs on defense, you probably get the ball back to the offense with maybe 2:30, 2:25 left to go, use the two-minute warning as a timeout. You’re going to win. That was the plan.”
On the play of rookie cornerback
Ron Bartell: “All he needs is confidence. He is a long-armed guy, he has great athleticism. He has a second gear. He has to combine those all together. Get up on a guy, press him and use his length. At the same time, when the guy starts to go in motion in a pick situation, realize that and understand that, now back off so you can drive the throw.
“Those are all things he has to work in practice. He has come light years since training camp. I think yesterday he grew a lot. He got hurt on some cover-2s, some zone coverages when we’re rolling up on the outside. But his work habits are really good. He’s really mature. He wants to be good. So it’s exciting. There are going to be some growing pains there, but I think he’s going to be a start in this league, I really do.”
On the play of defensive end Brandon Green: “All he does in make plays. All he does is work hard every day. Quick twitch, undersized athlete, has great knowledge of the game, has an outstanding work ethic. He is assignment conscious. He’s a big part of our football team. A great acquisition.”
On the play of rookie safety Jerome Carter: “He made some mistakes yesterday on defense when he had to go in and play for (Archuleta). It was first extended playing time in a mixed-down situation. He’s going to grow from that. At the end the day, he probably did more good things than bad things.”
On running a disastrous pitch play to
Steven Jackson on third and one: “It was an outstanding play call. We worked that play twice on Friday and twice on Saturday. They reduced that side of the defense like we thought they were going to do. It just so happened we had two of ours on one of theirs and we set somebody free. Again, it’s lack of execution.
“If you have that situation again you call that same exact play. Blocked properly, it’s out the gate. That’s possibly a 10-point swing. That’s seven we didn’t get and the three they go because of the change of possession. You can’t do it.”
On allowing the long kickoff return: “Very disappointing. As much time as we’ve spent on it . . . it is really coached hard, it is coached with a lot of technique, a lot of passion. A lot of accountability. At that point of the game, that’s the last thing in the world I was thinking about. I thought we would be sitting in a great situation, 3:50 left in the game, two timeouts left, to that point our defense had only given up one drive. That return killed us.”
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